time has no meaning for us
by ThePandorica
Summary: "When did you last dream?" she asks quietly, trying not to look at the metal box. Arthur stops for a moment, thinking her question over. "About six years ago, give or take a month." – One-shot. Slight!Arthur/Ariadne/Eames


time has no meaning for us now

**Blurb: **A snippet of Ariadne's relationship with the team, over five days: mainly Arthur and Eames. – One-shot

**A/N: **Hope this is alright. It was just written on a few basic ideas, and is meant to be a bit of fun. I've tried to show the relationship between Arthur, Eames and Ariadne in this (rather jumpy,) oneshot. Enjoy!

-:-

**Monday:**

"…You're named after that girl with the ball of string, aren't you?"

It was late in the evening, just a few mere hours after the rest of the team had officially packed up for the day, yet Arthur, Ariadne and Eames still found themselves working together on thinking up basic maze designs for the Fischer job. Ariadne was there because she was the Architect, Arthur, because he was Point-Man and therefore it was his job to look over the details (and because Cobb refused to do it,) and Eames – well – because he was bored and, as far as Ariadne could see, loved to have any available opportunity to tease Arthur.

"Slow on the uptake aren't you, Eames?" said Arthur, smirking as he sat on his chair, their two front legs hovering dangerously above the ground. Casually, yet meticulously, he picked up a pencil and spun it around in his hand. Eames scowled.

Ariadne turned slowly with a similar pencil tucked behind her ear, and frowned slightly at Arthur's response. Even so, if she'd had a dime every time someone had pointed that out… Absent-mindedly, she pulled her scarf down with one hand, the Kashmir material slipping through her fingers, "And you must be the king with the table, right?" she said nonchalantly, facing Arthur now, the skin around her eyes creasing for a moment as she tried not to grin.

"The round table, actually," he replied smoothly, passing an annoyed look to Eames beside her as the forger mouthed "Touché," in her general direction.

A sly smile passed across her lips, which she tried to hide behind her scarf. "Ah, I knew there was something missing," she quipped. Eames lent back in his chair, and tucked his hand behind his head in a blasé sort of way before speaking.

"It pays to be specific darling. In this job anyway, "

Arthur turned round from the table and raised one eyebrow in Eames' direction. The forger, on the other hand, simply grinned and winked at Ariadne, whilst Arthur looked on speechless, a gobsmacked look passing across his otherwise expressionless face.

Looking sideways at the point-man's expression, Ariadne struggled to conceal an amused smile as she spoke.

"Apparently so,"

-:-

**Tuesday:**

It was raining, which certainly put a damper on things: literally. The warehouse they were working in had conveniently decided to leak and it had been put down to Arthur to fix it.

Eames had stated that he would probably cause more damage to the wall and leak, rather than fix it; Yusuf was complaining that the rain water and damp caused by it would affect his many test tubes, despite the fact that the leak was the other side of the room – far away from his workspace; and Cobb, well, for the moment Ariadne wasn't sure why Cobb hadn't offered to fix the leak. In fact, she wasn't really sure what he was off doing for the moment. It was no doubt something important however.

The echo of noise created by the hammer sounded around the room as she flitted between various plans and drawings on her workstation. In all honesty, she was finding it rather difficult to work but she shrugged off the noise, thinking it would stop shortly. When it didn't five minutes later, Ariadne found herself edging ever closer toward a migraine – and she hadn't had one of those in years, ever since graduation.

"Can you stop tapping for a second? I can feel a pretty bad migraine coming along," she stated, loud enough for Arthur to hear, but not shouting it across the warehouse so that it attracted the attention of the others. Thankfully, the hammer stopped and the familiar face of her co-worker appeared before her. He was swivelled around on the ladder, with his shirt sleeve rolled up and hammer in hand. A look of concern flitted across his face.

"Would you like me to get you something?" he proffered, and she smiled tightly before shaking her, already pounding, head to decline.

"No thanks, just stopping the tapping would be great. I need to get on with stuff," she replied, gesturing to the mounds of paper models she had strewn around her desk.

He nodded once, obviously relating to the immense pressure and strain that being a part of the team led to. She thanked herself silently that Arthur didn't ask any more questions after that. Peace and quiet was all she really needed.

-:-

**Wednesday: **

Nothing much really happened on that day. Apart from the fact Eames nearly kicked Arthur out of his chair again. He'd sulked for the rest of the day, making an unnecessary amount of post-it notes and then ignoring everyone for at least an hour afterwards.

She couldn't help but notice that he looked sort of cute when he was sulking.

-:-

**Thursday: **

"Hey Ariadne, you finished the first maze yet?"

Looking up, she saw that it was Cobb coming to check up on her. Immediately, she tidied away stuff on her workspace before nodding. "Yeah, just checking over the last few details now. … You wanted goth-"

Cobb immediately raised his hand, cutting her off, and she blushed with embarrassment. Of course, he didn't want to know anything about the mazes. Then it would be easy for Mal to get in.

"Talk to Arthur about this Ariadne, remember? I just came to check up on you, see how you were doing,"

"Oh," she said, tugging at her scarf nervously, "Um, yeah I'm doing great,"

Cobb smiled. "Good to hear," Then, pausing, he spun on his heel before giving Ariadne one last appraising look, "Miles was certainly right about you, Ariadne. You're one talented girl,"

As he paced off back down the other end of the warehouse, she blushed and looked to her right, catching Eames' eye in the process. He simply smiled warmly and nodded toward Cobb.

A warm, content feeling settled somewhere within her chest as she returned to her work, this time with renewed vigour, finally glad, yet still a little embarrassed by the appraise and the appreciation she was receiving.

-:-

**Friday: **

"Can't you dream?"

Arthur smirked slightly and raised his head from his work. The others in the team, excluding Yusuf who was working on a new formula for the sedative at his workstation, had gone back to their various apartments or hotels for the night. Ariadne was just finishing up on her first maze and Arthur had stayed to overlook it.

"I think you mean 'can't you sleep?'"

Ariadne shook her head, and took a seat on one the striped lawn chairs that had been set out in the Warehouse. "No, I mean-" she paused, chewing her lip ever so slightly, trying to phrase her next sentence correctly, "after these jobs, and being shown _this_" she gestured at the metal suitcase beside him, "can you ever dream again?"

Now, the expression on Arthur's face had turned stony as he stepped out behind his work area and strode lightly over to where Ariadne was sitting. Slowly, he sat into the chair opposite hers and leaned forward.

"No. Well, at least not for a while anyway,"

She gulped, and sat up a little straighter. "When was the last time you dreamt? And I mean, without injecting yourself," she clarified, gesturing to the metal box atop his workspace.

A period of silence settled over the two of them, as Arthur thought about her question, before promptly answering. "Six years, give or take a couple of months,"

Ariadne almost choked on her next lot of words, "Six _years?"_

He shrugged, the fabric of his jacket moving in perfect sync with the lift of his shoulders. "I've been a part of this business for a long time Ariadne. Cobb and I trained together, you know?"

She nodded, wordlessly, still trying to take in the point-man's rather shocking confession.

"It's no wonder Eames-'" she muttered to herself, when Arthur snapped his head up and frowned, lines quickly engraining themselves across his forehead.

"Eames, what?" he questioned, his dark brown eyes narrowing.

"Oh nothing," she responded hastily, covering up her mistake of commenting aloud.

Sitting back in his chair, Ariadne watch Arthur's expression become more guarded than she had ever seen it before. "Of course, nothing,"

The heat rose to her cheeks before she could stop it.

-:-

**Review?**


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